DON'T BE DECEIVED

Our "Summer Breezes" series took us to the book of 2 John this week.  One of the major concerns of John for the church at Ephesus was that they were being deceived by false teachers.   In verse 11 John gives very strong warning to not show hospitality to those who teach in opposition to the teaching of Jesus and scripture.  Right after talking about the importance of love, John comes back to the truth of God and warns the people to be very careful.

Satan is a deceiver, and he will use people, sometimes without them even knowing it to deceive those that are trying to follow God.  Think about the things in your life that you have experienced that are decptive by design.  I love to fish and I have a whole box full of little plastic and rubber things that are supposed to look appealing to big ole fish.  But every one of them has at least one hook attached to it.  Some have as many as six.  They are called "lures", because they lure fish into a false sense of security and then I catch them.  Once upon a time I could hit a baseball pretty well and then the older I got the pitchers on the other team starting throwing these balls with a different spin on them and then they reacted to gravity and wind and just as a would swing they would ... "CURVE".  I was deceived to think it was a fast ball and then I would strike out and head back to the dug out.  Satan is the master of deception.

Many things that look good, are really harmful, that’s why it is called deceit

According to Peter Kendall in the Chicago Tribune, Ruben Brown, age sixty-one, was known on the south and west sides of Chicago, as the friendly neighborhood cockroach exterminator with "the Mississippi stuff." The Mississippi stuff was a pesticide Brown had bought hundreds of gallons of in the South, and it really did the trick on roaches. Brown went from door to door with his hand sprayer, and his business grew as satisfied customers recommended the remarkably effective exterminator to others.      

In the process, however, Brown is alleged to have single-handedly created an environmental catastrophe. The can-do pesticide-methyl parathion-is outlawed by the EPA for use in homes. Southern farmers use it on boll weevils in their cotton fields, and within days the pesticide chemically breaks down into harmless elements. Not so in the home. There the pesticide persists as a toxic chemical that can harm the human neurological system with effects similar to lead poisoning.        

The EPA was called into Chicago for the cleanup. Drywall, carpeting, and furniture sprayed with the pesticide had to be torn out and hauled to a hazardous -materials dump. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the total cost of the cleanup would be some $20 million, ranking this as one of the worst environmental nightmares in Illinois history.     
Brown was charged with two misdemeanors. He apparently didn’t know much about the pesticide he sprayed so liberally. Brown’s attorney said, "It’s a tragedy. It is one of those situations where he did a lot of harm, but his intention in no way matches the damage he has done. He is a family man and handled it with his own hands. Do you think he knew how toxic it was?"  

What you don’t know can hurt you. That is true both of pesticides and of false teaching.

That’s why the “study” part of our Spiritual DNA is so important. We need to know the truth because the truth can … set you free!